Fantasy Zone [Model H49G-1001]

Fantasy Zone © 1988 NEC Avenue, Limited.

Fantasy zone is a side scrolling shooter by NEC Avenue, conversion of Sega's arcade game originally released in 1986. The player takes control of a cute little flying ship called Opa-Opa and his mission is to restore peace to Fantasy Zone and to find out who is behind the invasion. Fantasy Zone actually borrows some core gameplay mechanics from Atari's Defender and Opa must destroy a given number of bases in each stage in order to proceed to the boss. Opa can use to different weapons - the first one is a standard vulcan-twin-gun that fires quickly and decimates enemies, the second one is a powerful bomb that can only be dropped downwards. Defeated foes drop coins that the player can collect to purchase upgrades in various shops hidden inside red floating balloons. There, Opa can purchase goods such as speed boosts (big wings, jet engine, turbo engine...), extra lives, upgrade his main weapons (wide beams, laser beams, 7 ways shots...) or his bombs (twin bombs, smart bombs...). New weapons, however, have a time limit and need to be purchased again at a higher cost.